At the workshop we saw a lot of cross-pollination take place between the advocacy strategies of groups working in natural resources governance and the extractives industries, and all the amazing tech tools that already exist for collecting, displaying and disseminating information. We were inspired by the passion, skill and ingenuity everyone brought to the table, and we are motivated by the potential harbored in proposed collaborations between NGOs and technologists that emerged at the workshop.

Based on workshop discussions and post-event conversations with participants, we put forth three lessons to inform the Bridging effort going forward:

Articulate your strategy. Advocacy groups and technologists alike gained an understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist in the growing technology for transparency space. A desire remains to delve deeper into deconstructing different types of strategies for transparency advocacy, and understanding how technology can be a lever in achieving accountability.

Context matters. A lot. Discussions reinforced the importance of understanding the political environment and context within which technology approaches are implemented and advocacy groups operate. A greater diversity of perspectives – particularly from the developing world – would enrich this discussion and help in evaluating the impact of technology for transparency.

The data exists, so hack! The hands-on opportunity to “hack” transparency projects and demonstrate how existing technology tools and approaches can be implemented quickly and effectively was a valuable experience for participants. Interactions between technologists and NGOs that lead to concrete projects and outcomes must be supported and sustained.

As we move forward with the Bridging initiative, the Transparency Policy Project will engage the Glen Cove groups in reflecting together on how to implement transparency and accountability projects. We are also keen to develop more innovative, and tailored approaches to measuring the impact that this work is having in advancing transparency and accountability. By articulating strategies, understanding context, and hacking projects, we hope to sharpen our collective understanding of how to best leverage technology tools in improving outcomes for arguably some of the most wicked problems on this planet.

Pedro Daire is in charge of technology for Chile’s Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente (“Smart Citizen”), a leader in employing technology for transparency in Latin America. Notable projects include Vota Inteligente to monitor the Chilean parliament, the Freedom of Information portal Acceso Inteligente, and most recently, a conflict of interest tracker that shines a light on parliamentarians, the legislation they support, and their personal investments. I spoke with Pedro via Skype on December 16, 2011 to capture his reflections on the Bridging Transparency and Technology (TABridge) workshop (which TPP participated in as well) held in Glen Cove, New York in early December. Pedro’s answers to my questions were so insightful on the matter of bridging tech and transparency that I decided to share a condensed version of our interview through this blog post.

Francisca: What was most valuable about participating in the TABridge event to the work you are doing and want to do in the future?

Pedro: The most useful insight from the event was learning from the experiences of Kert Davies of Greenpeace and Heather White from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). They have been working with information to advance their advocacy work since before technology became such a powerful tool, and a result, they really know how to use information in strategic ways. They use technology as an amplifier, as a tool, and not and end in itself. In contrast, for younger people like me, technology is content, something in and of itself.

That insight, combined with the imperative to have an explicit theory of change behind our projects, an idea which Archon Fung guided us through at the workshop, is very useful for us. We are planning to analyze every project we do through the theory of change framework to guide our strategy and planning.

Did the event give you new ideas as to the role of technology in transparency efforts?

We have a very creative and innovative team at Ciudadano Inteligente, which means that we often have too many creative ideas! Our challenge is implementing those ideas and thinking about the impact chain of each project. We are very adept at developing tools for transparency, but don’t think about how that tool will be used to change or promote our end goals. We are too often focused on the tool and assume people will react to the information in impactful ways. But that’s not true. What I learned in the event is to attach a cause behind each tool.

We try to actively engage people with the information we provide, but we haven’t made a point to teach them what the next step is for them in terms of mobilizing around the information. With the conflict of interest tool for example, we should have considered incorporating an element to mobilize people to hold their legislators accountable from the beginning, but instead, we improvised a last-minute online petition when we realized this could be useful. I’ve come to see that facilitating these interactions is very important because otherwise, we have this citizen, but she’s only a spectator of the information. Only the most motivated people will react to the information. We need to say “hey, you’ve seen the info, now you should share this with five people,” and that’s much more than what we’ve done so far.

What should the TABridge program focus on as we work to support this network of practice?

The group that gathered at Glen Cove is like a ‘dream team’ of NGOs! Everyone who was there is very capable, enthusiastic and smart. The shared sense of purpose that we felt there – knowing that we are all concerned about the same issues and looking for the best ways to impact change – is very powerful. But there is risk that we’ll forget that we’ve been together thinking about how to use tech for transparency in strategic ways.

We need the organizers to keep reminding us that we have common issues, challenges and problems. I don’t think they should be helping me to implement projects, however. I didn’t expect to return to Chile from the workshop with solutions. Rather, I expected to come home with doubts. We have already been successful with our work here in Chile, but it’s risky for us to keep holding those minor successes as triumphs. The main value of TABridge is to help us reflect on our work.